New.Adverts
nzb.guide.main1.0
useful xmlnzb files
NZB files are an innovation of http://www.newzbin.com who had the bright idea to provide an XML based file which would allow the quick downloading of files from newsgroup servers. Since their servers were already indexing the vast newsgroup servers it made sense to take advantage of this and provide a service to allow a quick download of files.
nzb.guide.overview
NZB files provide a great benefit to the newsgroup community. In the past if you wished to download a particular set of files you had to first find the group that your files were located, then download all the headers for that group until all of your files were available. Finally you had to search all the headers for your files. This was tedious to say the least. Newzbin.com overcame this be providing NZB (NewsBin Files) which can be loaded into a newsgroup reader and allow a direct download of the particular files it encapsulates to be downloaded.
So what does one of these files look like inside? Below is an example of one I found for a par file for a linux iso distribution.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?>
<!DOCTYPE nzb PUBLIC "-//newzBin//DTD NZB 1.0//EN" "http://www.newzbin.com/DTD/nzb/nzb-1.0.dtd">
<nzb xmlns="http://www.newzbin.com/DTD/2003/nzb">
<file poster="test@test.test" date="1225385180" subject="ubuntu-8.10-desktop-i386 - ubuntu-8.10-desktop-i386.par2 (1/1)">
<groups>
<group>alt.binaries.cd.image</group>
</groups>
<segments>
<segment bytes="66196" number="1">waWdnZFHevdBeZTUnZ2dnUVZ8uOdnZ2d@giganews.com</segment>
</segments>
</file>
</nzb> If the above looks complicated don't worry, its actually rather simple. The first line refers to the XML specification and you can pretty much just leave this constant. The DOCTYPE line refers to the specification that the file follows, you can download the file from the newzbin web site and open it with notepad if you are interested.
Now a breakdown of the tags from within the doc type:
- nzb - this is the header tag and should surround all the tags from within the file
- file - this represents a particular file in a newsgroup, we can see that this refers to a test poster, on a given date in unixtime representation with the files subject header. You can have multiple files in the one NZB file, these would be listed one after the other.
- groups - The groups tag will contain a set of group tags, which represents which groups the file is available. You can have more than one group per file.
- segments - a segment contains a list of all segments that make up a file. In the simple instance here we only have one but there could be many.
- segment - a segment has 3 parameters, the byte size, segment number of the article and finally last but not least the message id of the article.
Individually these tags are meaningless, however collectively it contains enough data to seek out the file on the newsgroup server.
create.nzb
So now we know what NZB files are lets find out how to create them. Some of the more powerful clients like newsleecher and newsbin allow you to highlight the files on the screen and output them to nzb. However I will go over a more general method that is free and everybody can use. You want to start by downloading a utility called YencPowerPostA&A from the web site http://powerpost.cjb.net.This should be a small zip file no more than a few hundred kb. This is usually used for uploading files to newsgroups, you can generate PAR files, SFV files, and of course NZB files. However we will just use the functionality to make NZB files
If you wish you can go into the program settings in the view menu option and update your nickname and details etc, however in this instance I will just leave the defaults. You want to start by clicking on the select file button, I have highlighted this in yellow:
You will be promoted to select the files that you want to create the nzb of, select all the files and a new screen will popup. Now select the newsgroup tab and on this screen enter the newsgroup name that you know the files are on.
You should click on the checksum tag and select the generate .NZB option.
Now click ok, you will get a message that you did not change the subject line, this is ok, you would only need to do this if uploading files. Just click yes to continue. Congratulations you have created your first nzb. The file automatically generates in the folder that you had chosen earlier. You should see it listed on your screen.
download.from.nzb
Finally last but not least how to download from an nzb. I would recommend using Grabit, you can find out more information on installing and setting this up on our newsgroup guide page. However it is so simple to download files using a NZB. We open Grabit and click on the "NZB Import" button which will open the following screen:
Select your server and click on Add and select the NZB file. Click Grab and the software will download all the files segments within the NZB file. This really could not make life any easier.
- Those people at p2p.resourcep2p.comments
Comments to date: 1. Page 1 of 1. Average Rating: 
JJ USA
5:44pm on Saturday, January 24th, 2009
I love NZB, they make life much easier. Now I understand how they work.